It looked like a knockout hit, a play that would frustrate the Tigres Del Licey and send them back down in the LIDOM standings.
Instead, it ignited a comeback.
After the Estrellas Orientales took a one-run lead in the top of the 11th, Jordan Lawlar and Sergio Alcántara added key hits in the bottom of the inning, erasing the deficit and defeating the Estrellas 3-2 in Santo Domingo.
Lawlar’s was easily the most improbable, with the right-handed hitter being jammed on an inside pitch but flaring the knock behind the reaching second baseman.
The Arizona Diamondbacks’ second baseman’s knock extended his impressive start to the LIDOM season. During this campaign, he tallied a .263 batting average with a .727 OPS and two home runs in his return to action from injuries that sidelined him most of the MLB season.
But it was Alcántara’s lining knock to left that resulted in the celebration — a mob of Licey players greeting him at first base. Alcántara went 2-3 on the day, with a stolen base, adding some serious contributions from the eight-spot in the lineup and earning LIDOM’s player of the day.
The Estrellas Orientales did not play a clean game, bunching most of their mistakes into the later innings with two errors on the day. But Alcántara and Lawlar made them pay. The loss moves the Estrellas to 8-8 on the young season.
The win was monumental for the now second-place Tigres in the standings; after weeks of going back-and-forth floating around .500, they now sit two games over that number, with the 12-4 Leones del Escogido the only team on top of them in the standings.
However, with more late-game heroics and more strong play from a roster with MLB-caliber talent like Lawlar, Francisco Mejia, and Emilio Bonifacio, the Tigres could see themselves making a run at that top spot very soon.
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